| Comments on the clues |
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| 1. A Frenchman is quitting Paris—unknown in love, destroyed by love |
| 1. | Nice construction but the surface's meaning eludes me. |
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| 2. A Frenchman, pay for love? Must be abroad missing France! |
| 1. | The first phrase makes little grammatical sense to me. | | 2. | Nicely constructed and well disguised anagram. | | 3. | Much the best surface of the "pay for love" anagrams: neat, original and witty. |
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| 3. A vet briefly struggles with poorly Alsatian? |
| 1. | Nice idea but needed an indication of Alsatian as an example (of Frenchman) to fully work? | | 2. | Definition very nicely disguised by the surface meaning; the latter doesn't quite convince (e.g. 'briefly') for top marks. |
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| 4. Before tango's conclusion, relatively older man and mistreated lover incorporate ultimate in perversity to have intercourse in Paris |
| 1. | 12 words should be a (rarely used) max length for clues. This had 18. I gave up | | 2. | too long (the clue)to be clever | | 3. | Good summary of the film but rather long for a clue. | | 4. | way too verbose and a bit stilted it would seem |
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| 5. Can this question make one vocal, pray? |
| 1. | why 'this question' … even just 'this' might have been better | | 2. | The comp. anag. works nicely; the def (the whole surface) is weak (non-specific) | | 3. | A parleyvoo isn't a question even though it's derived from one. | | 4. | don't quite see how this is an &lit |
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| 6. Eric Cantona, say, rough player with very good heart. |
| 1. | unfortunately it should be "good's heart" | | 2. | Loved this until the ending: 'good heart' is not 'oo' (= 'good's heart'), so erroneous: nil points Monsieur, sadly. |
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| 7. French curiously pay for love but not with francs |
| 1. | Technically fine but surface doesn't excite | | 2. | The construction is fine, the surface nothing special. |
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| 8. French No.6 player having lost the lead is down one set to love |
| 1. | '6' kind of makes it an indirect anagram (could be 'six' also); the instructions also don't seem to work well | | 2. | Nice try but you need to have 'No.' losing its lead; this gives '…player having lost the lead' | | 3. | "Set" an a.i.?! |
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| 9. French Open leader trails erratic player Five-Love |
| 1. | 'Open leader' for 'O' not quite grammatical | | 2. | Nice surface but whereas Open's leader is O, Open leader is not. |
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| 10. French overplay free love |
| 1. | If brevity is the soul of wit, this is it! | | 2. | Sound clue, though nothing special to raise it above average. |
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| 11. French players almost drunk see two balls |
| 1. | Sound clue, and an 'almost' convincing surface story (I see double only if I'm fully plastered). |
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| 12. French police acting very poorly, English getting stuffed |
| 1. | Not entirely convinced that the 'put in order' meaning of 'police' = 'rearrange', but I'll give it a point. |
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| 13. French provocatively translated when no ITV commercials initially interrupt |
| 1. | The subtraction feels a bit overworked | | 2. | Nice subtractive anagram except… it's an ANAGRAM of ITV (also C) that interrupt so this needed indicating e.g. 'bad ITV..' |
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| 14. French swimming pool very appealing, essentially. |
| 1. | Sound clue. Surface fine but not brilliant (e.g. the 'French' is there just for convenience) |
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| 15. Frenchman, ignoring sex at first, pays old lover to dress up |
| 1. | Sound clue but surface story not entirely convincing. |
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| 16. Frenchman's duck during over – play not up to scratch |
| 1. | Sound clue but surface doesn't read entirely naturally. |
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| 17. Frenchman’s quaintly poovy circling Van Gogh’s venue endlessly |
| 1. | Surface story rambly; little to raise it above the competition. |
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| 18. French-Scottish gingerbread avec premier vin and duck egg. |
| 1. | The sort of menu you'd only find in a crossword clue | | 2. | Clues must be accurate for the solver; 'French-Scottish' is a single unit (word combination) and thus is your definition of P. |
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| 19. Frenchy makes distraught lover pay before love. |
| 1. | One of the better 'lover pay' clues |
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| 20. Frog's crazy gravity-free groovy leap |
| 1. | 'Gravity-defying' maybe? | | 2. | 'Gravity-defying' better? | | 3. | Humorous picture but is the lack of gravity poetic or the result of being in orbit? |
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| 22. Language of love or pay-off? |
| 1. | Clues must be accurate in fairness to the solver: 'love or pay-off' is not 'love or pay off'. | | 2. | The hyphen in "pay-off" is necessary, but, for "off" to be used as an a.i., it needs to be a separate word. |
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| 23. Local French resistance love struggling with Axis before being captured by Jerry |
| 1. | Subject/verb do not agree. |
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| 25. Lévy, just not acute, a poor, confused Frenchman! |
| 1. | Surely it's unnecessary to "delete the accent", and the effort to do so is clumsy and spoils a potentially good clue |
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| 27. Magical lover boy not born a Prince? Frog! |
| 1. | Now that's better: this def is specifically relevant to the surface story. Its separation from the rest is weak, but still a nice clue. |
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| 28. Maybe Strauss-Kahn got lovey with a pro, in a tumble? |
| 1. | One of the few clues in which the def. has specific relevance to the surface story. nice. |
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| 33. Nice chap in A&E very poorly treated |
| 1. | How succinct and what a pleasant change from all the clues that used 'love'. | | 2. | I like the definition, more obscure than the majority of entries. Good surface reading, too. | | 3. | Nice is used as a noun here so the 'Nice chap' is grammatically meaningless: fairness to the solver means accuracy. | | 4. | Not all Frenchmen come from Nice. For the definition to be sound, an "e.g." or equivalent is needed. Contrast 34, which is sound. |
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| 34. Nice language from play overcooked with love (9) |
| 1. | Nice is used as a noun here so the 'Nice language' is grammatically meaningless: fairness to the solver means accuracy. |
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| 35. Oscar's first play: over-complicated question to migrant on the French border? |
| 1. | The hyphen makes one word out of two so the clue becomes inaccurate (erroneous). |
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| 36. Overplay tragedy? That's nothing for a Frenchman |
| 1. | I prefer no 10 for this anagram | | 2. | 'tragedy' is a noun so doesn't describe (indicate) any anagram. |
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| 37. Paolo? Very unusual name for a Frenchman |
| 1. | Simple, but admirably concise and an entirely natural surface |
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| 40. Perhaps he pays for lover to get fresh with his tongue? |
| 1. | don't feel there is enough in definition to get to the word | | 2. | Nice try but the def (whole) doesn't cut it with me – a Frenchman doesn't characteristically need to pay for this. |
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| 42. Played polo with a very disturbed Frenchman |
| 1. | Why are there two anagram indicators? Disturbed does not work as part of the definition. |
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| 44. Poor Valéry runs away, teased thus? |
| 1. | find it hard to see this as an &lit though one gets the drift |
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| 45. Running into manure ruined early victory for one in the French race |
| 1. | Nice surface if rather unlikely circumstances. |
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| 47. Speaking French poorly? Eva is upset. (9) |
| 1. | Strictly "is" is incorrect as it refers to 2 words (and in separate phrases). Who is Eva (other than fodder for the anagram)? |
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| 51. Would dashing lover pay for ring, meaning to get engaged? |
| 1. | I can't see the definition here | | 2. | Looks like you compromised clue accuracy for a nice surface meaning. The clue "Would (x) meaning (y)?" makes no sense to me. | | 3. | Am I missing something? How does "parleyvoo" mean "to get engaged"? And what is the function of "for" in the s.i.? |
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